


Her Kind

by hecateandhoney (LiveLoveLikeMe)



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017), The Worst Witch - All Media Types
Genre: Anniversary, Caught in the Rain, F/F, Fluff, Friendship, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-26
Updated: 2018-04-26
Packaged: 2019-04-28 00:26:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14437473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiveLoveLikeMe/pseuds/hecateandhoney
Summary: As the twentieth anniversary of their friendship approached, Hecate wanted to do something special to commemorate the event with Ada.  In the end, perhaps there was more in the air than they were willing to admit.  Hackle.





	Her Kind

**Author's Note:**

> Hiya! As usual, this started off as a drabble response to a lovely anon on tumblr, and ended up a full story. I hope you all enjoy!
> 
> Original Prompt: Hecate plans a picnic for Ada but it rains.
> 
> The poem referenced is called Her Kind by Anne Sexton.

Hecate didn’t often plan outings, for when she did, no matter how simple she attempted to keep the details, something always inevitably went wrong and tossed all her careful preparation out the window.  However, as she watched the date signaling twenty years of friendship with Ada rapidly approaching, Hecate thought it might be a good time to make an exception.

To be more precise, it had been twenty-one years and thirty-six days since she had started her job teaching at Cackle’s alongside Ada—only still a teacher then herself.  It wasn’t until a year and thirty-six days in, however, that Hecate found herself beginning to form a bond with the older woman.  Before that time they had spoken only in passing, Hecate keeping her head down and trying to push her way through the newness of teaching pupils and all they encompassed.

But twenty years ago exactly, Ada had changed all of that.  Hecate was having a particularly stressful day, near her wits end trying to balance all the different aspects of her job that threatened to overwhelm, when a knock sounded against her door.  She’d tried to wipe away the tears burning down her cheeks, but whatever Ada had come to ask her, she still didn’t know to this day.  One look at her face and Ada had barged her way in, sat Hecate down on her couch with a cup of tea, and silently transferred a book from her own collection into her waiting palms.

There they sat, Hecate embarrassed at having been caught by a colleague in a moment of weakness, and Ada looking completely serene and at home on her too-stiff couch.  And then, not saying a word about Hecate’s emotional state, she had opened the book and begun to read:

 

_I have gone out, a possessed witch,_  
_haunting the black air, braver at night;_  
 _dreaming evil, I have done my hitch_  
 _over the plain houses, light by light:_  
 _lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind._  
 _A woman like that is not a woman, quite._  
 _I have been her kind._

_I have found the warm caves in the woods,_  
_filled them with the skillets, carvings, shelves,_  
 _closets, silks, innumerable goods;_  
 _fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:_  
 _whining, rearranging the disaligned._  
 _A woman like that is misunderstood._  
 _I have been her kind._

_I have ridden in your cart, driver,_  
_waved my nude arms at villages going by,_  
 _learning the last bright routes, survivor_  
 _where your flames still bite my thigh_  
 _and my ribs crack where your wheels wind._  
 _A woman like that is not ashamed to die._  
 _I have been her kind._

 

“That was absolutely visceral, Miss Cackle.  Who wrote it?” Hecate asked, finding a strange sense of belonging and comfort in the words so rooted in a deeply pained history—or perhaps, just the woman speaking them.

Ada smiled up at her and lowered the book to her lap, adjusting her glasses to better look Hecate’s way.  She was struck, for the first time, by a certain soft beauty in the other woman.  “Anne Sexton.  A poem called, Her Kind.  I read it the other night and couldn’t help thinking you might like it.”

Hecate frowned.  She had a deep love of poetry, but the name was far from one she recognized.  “I’m afraid I don’t know her work, but I enjoyed it.”

“Yes, I thought you might.  She’s not really a witch.”  Ada chuckled, no doubt taking in the shock on Hecate’s face.  “I know it’s a bit taboo, but I enjoy reading works by ordinary folk on occasion.”

Hecate swallowed thickly—normally, everything about this would have put her on high alert.  A woman barging into her room hardly invited, reading her strange poetry from a non-witch as though it were perfectly innocent to do.  Saying she had even thought of her when she first read it.  Hecate ought to be offended.

Yet, she wasn’t.  In fact, it was the most comforted she had felt since arriving at Cackle’s Academy, and that was a feeling Hecate was not so apt to lose.

“Could you… read another?” she asked carefully, feeling a bit naughty to willingly ask for more.  Ada didn’t judge her, though.  She merely smiled, opened the book to another tabbed page, and began to read. 

They sat that way for a while, Ada reading poems, sometimes pausing for them to discuss a particularly moving piece, until well after Hecate’s teacup had run empty and the time for enforcing a curfew would soon be approaching.  She hadn’t enjoyed company quite so deeply in years, and frowned a little to herself at the thought of ending it.

“Thank you for your company, Miss Cackle,” Hecate said, hoping to convey much more than her words spoke, and from the twinkling smile she received in return, she thought she may have succeeded.

“Of course, I enjoyed myself.  I know something so unconventional is a bit outside your comfort, but I thank you for indulging me.  And please, call me Ada.”

“Very well, Ada.  I think you have also earned the right to call me, Hecate.”

And so their friendship blossomed, stretched in all directions over the years, but always hanging on like a sturdy barrier that brought them back together in the end.  Sometimes, Hecate felt there was more to them than mere friendship, that Ada might even feel the same too, but neither ever moved to fully change it.  They were what they were, and thus far had avoided rocking the boat unnecessarily.  It wasn’t always all it could have been, but it was always there, and Hecate treasured it more than anything.

Which was why she had seen it necessary to plan something special to commemorate the occasion.

The location was a perfect, beautifully secluded hill a short distance from Cackle’s—too far to comfortably transfer, but an easy broomride away.  She hadn’t told Ada of her intentions beyond asking her to lunch, but knew from the single rose left outside her door that Ada had remembered the anniversary, and all throughout the morning of nervous fluttering trying to arrange every last piece of her plan, each glance at it brought a smile to Hecate’s face.

“This is lovely, Hecate,” Ada gasped, coming to a soft landing and gently leaning her broom against a tree.  The hill was open to the sun, strikingly dotted with trees.  Down in the valley below was a field of wild lavender, the aroma reaching them with each breeze and the brilliant purple hues adding a whimsical quality to their surroundings.

Hecate waved her hand and the picnic basket she had packed unloaded itself, spreading a soft checkered green blanket against the grass beside a big willow tree, followed by an assortment of fruits, cheeses, wine, and some of Ada’s favorite cream cakes.

She perched gracefully at one side of the blanket, legs folded to the side in her stiff dress, and lifted a goblet of wine toward Ada.  “Happy Anniversary,” Hecate said softly.  Ada beamed and took her seat at the other end, happily taking the offered goblet off Hecate and clinking theirs together.  “To friendship,” Hecate murmured.

“To friendship, and all the more,” Ada returned, and they both drank to that.

“It’s beautiful here, Hecate.  I admit, I’m surprised, it’s rather romantic of you.”

Hecate blushed at the term, hiding behind a cough as she bit down on a grape and nodded.  “Yes,” she began once she’d swallowed and bitten back the flush to her cheeks, “I just thought it would be nice, for such a special occasion, to do something a little different for once.  Twenty years is no light feat.”

“Indeed,” Ada said contently. 

They dined and the day went smoothly; Hecate enjoying how Ada looked in the sunlight as it brought out the gold tones in her hair, feeling so utterly comfortable just sitting beside her.  When the food was nothing more than remains and the wine growing empty, she reached into the basket for one more surprise, feeling slightly embarrassed at Ada’s gasp of recognition when she unveiled the worn blue cover of a book.

Over the years, Hecate had built her own collection of non-witching literature—mostly all as gifts from Ada—and had learned to treasure her slightly taboo hobby.  On many nights they sat awake, taking turns reading passages to one another, enjoying the secretive way the words made them feel.  To commemorate this particular occasion, however, she had snuck Ada’s Anne Sexton collection from her office, hoping Ada wouldn’t mind the invasion.  She had, after all, told Hecate many times she was always permitted to browse her shelves and take what she wished.

“What did you originally come to me for that night?” Hecate asked, thumbing through the well-read pages to find the right one.  “I never did ask.”

Ada chuckled, leaning back on her hands and looking up at the clouds.  “I think… yes, I do believe I remember.  Mother was training me in some of the headmistress duties still then, and I realized as I was going through the paperwork that you’d made a mistake on a particularly important document.  Unlike you now, but back then you could be so frazzled trying to juggle it all before you got your footing,” Ada said with a fond chuckle.  “I was going to berate you for it, but I took one look at your face and thought, _this witch needs a cuppa._ ” 

Hecate cracked a smile and ducked her chin.  “I was having the worst evening until you showed up and somehow made it all better.  Very few had ever cared to do that for me before,” Hecate confessed.

Ada leaned across the blanket, finding Hecate’s hand and giving it a squeeze, which she gratefully returned.  “One of my best decisions to date.”

“Hardly,” Hecate scoffed with a smirk, “I’m sure I’ve been more trouble than comfort over the years, but for you I do try.  You’ve been an important part of my life, Ada.”  She looked up and met Ada’s sparkling eyes, then allowed her gaze to travel down to the witch’s soft pink lips.  It would be so easy to break their unspoken barrier, so easy to ruin the comfort between them.

Instead, Hecate dropped her hand, coughed, and returned to the book.  “I found the poem you read to me.  Would you?” she asked, offering the book to Ada.  For her part, Ada waved it away.

“I think it’s your turn, dear.”

She cleared her throat and held the book awkwardly in front of her, but did not deny Ada’s request.  Hecate’s voice was stilted as she read, none of Ada’s flowing tones ringing through the words as she spoke them, and she was sure she paused in several of the wrong places or emphasized all the wrong words, but Ada’s face reflected only pure bliss back at her.

Hecate finished the poem and quickly returned it to the basket before Ada could ask her to read anything further, a small smile playing on her lips at the other woman’s sighs of contentment all the while.

“You shouldn’t doubt yourself, Hecate.  I love hearing it in your voice, you know.”

Hecate’s forehead scrunched in consideration as she appraised Ada, who had returned to staring up at the clouds.  “I’ll keep that in mind,” she murmured. 

There was more to the day planned, things that Hecate had spent ages arranging and perfecting, but none of them came to be.  No sooner had she closed her eyes for just a moment’s rest in the comfort of Ada’s presence than did the rain come.

It was chilling and poured down from the sky with one loud crack of thunder all the warning allotted.  Hecate gasped and her eyes popped open as she struggled to her feet, dress already sticking even more uncomfortably tight against her skin, before helping Ada do the same. 

There was no shelter close enough to transfer to, and they could hardly fly back in rain too thick to properly see through, so she tugged Ada toward the willow tree.  It was cool inside the cavernous branches, water still breaking in through the form of light trickles, but was significantly dryer than the open air.  Hecate collapsed against the trunk, shivering and breathing heavily at their near escape.

“Are you all right?” she asked, taking in Ada’s soaked appearance.  The woman’s pink sweater looked as though it weighed a dozen pounds under the weight of all the water it had absorbed, but Ada still smiled just as brightly.

“I’m fine, Hecate.  I haven’t been in a downpour like that since I was a child.  Aren’t they delightful?”

Hecate could think of many words for it, but delightful certainly didn’t come to mind as she shivered once more.   Her normally warm dark material was anything but while soaked through with icy water and clinging tightly against her like a second skin.

But it was almost easy to see it as delightful when she looked at Ada’s unbridled joy.

Perhaps it was the reminder of how good it had once felt to touch something new, but looking at Ada now, wet hair plastered to the sides of her face, laughter jostling through her, Hecate was overcome with the urge to kiss her.

She stepped closer, hands shaking from more than just the cold, and reached out for Ada’s warm grasp.  Ada’s laughter ceased, and her smile softened as she allowed Hecate to move at her own pace. 

As though handling a treasured object of deep sentimental value, Hecate took their friendship and parted it off to the sides, reaching through and bending down to close the distance and seal their lips together in a kiss.

As she melted into the feeling of Ada’s soft, warm lips pressing back against her own with renewed eagerness, Hecate released the friendship, letting it snap back against them and merge with this gentle newness of something more.  Twenty years she had spent not kissing Ada, not wanting anything to risk ruining what they had, when all along it could have encased them in something even greater.

No longer afraid of herself, Hecate wrapped her hands around the back of Ada’s hair, tangling her fingers into matted wet locks.  She parted back with a gasp, and Ada’s lips opened to her in response, the richness of the wine still on her lips as she kissed Hecate again.

And for a moment, they didn’t care that they were wet and Hecate was shivering, sure to fall ill if she didn’t soon at least use a drying spell on herself.  They didn’t care that twenty years of friendship had come to a sort of end—replaced with something so much _better_.  They didn’t care that the kisses weren’t perfect and the plans had been ruined by rain.

Ada Cackle was her kind, and Hecate didn’t think twenty years could have culminated in a more perfect ending had she planned it herself.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
